Hintlesham


Hintlesham is a small village in Suffolk, England, situated roughly halfway between Ipswich and Hadleigh. It is in the Belstead Brook electoral division of Suffolk County Council.
The village is notable for Hintlesham Hall, a 16th-century Grade I listed country house that was restored and turned into a hotel by the famous chef, restaurateur and food writer Robert Carrier. The business was owned later by the hotelier and broadcaster Ruth Watson.

The church

The parish church of St Nicolas is a typical Decorated church, and therefore not typical for Suffolk. It has many memorials to the Tymperley family and the squint in the north wall shows that the vestry was once a chapel, possibly a chantry to the family, converted to secular use in the 1540s. The stairway to the roodloft in the south wall is one of the best preserved in the county. For about 350 years Hintlesham has been a joint parish with Chattisham whose church, St Margaret's, stands about a mile away, separated by a valley of meadows and woods.

Hintlesham Hall

For six years from 1448, Hintlesham Manor, a single storey Tudor Hall, was owned by Sir John Fortescue who used one of the rooms as a local court. In 1454 the manor was purchased by John Timperley.
In August 1720 the hall was bought by Richard Powys a Principal Clerk to The Treasury and the Powys family lived there for nearly 30 years, after which it was sold to the lawyer Richard Lloyd, a future solicitor-general, and passed down through his descendants until the early 1900s.
In 1972 the hall was bought by chef Robert Carrier for £32,000 and was restored. Today the hall is notable as a country retreat with fine dining and has its own privately owned golf club.

Amenities

The village has its own Church of England Voluntary Aided junior school.
The village public house in The George, the original premises of which burned down at the end of the 19th century.